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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

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Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#871

Post by CaptainMarvel »

clarry wrote: post #854
the_af wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply. I think there is little to no correlation, but like the opposite opinion, I've no proof other than the anecdotal: the best hackers I've known didn't care about these things. Other bizarre opinions I've read from Atwood and his followers: that you should be an excellent typist (this is also related to owning a mechanical keyboard). No. Just no. Typing speed is not the bottleneck when writing soft…

> Typing speed is not the bottleneck when writing software. The bottleneck is my brain. I agree except with a caveat: the mechanical action of typing, formatting, refactoring, fixing typos and missing semicolons, and moving code around actually distracts the brain from the higher level task at hand. And when the brain is already the bottleneck, I don't want to make it worse by wasting brain cycles on mechanical drudg…

It’s the opposite for me, having fewer monitors makes it harder to find a window. I have to go through alt-tabbing slowly to get to the one I’m after.

With three monitors, I know exactly where my windows are. If I have more than three windows that’s annoying, but I keep the extra ones on the middle monitor to simplify things.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#872

Post by okasaki »

xenihn wrote: post #847
okasaki wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Samsung 4k TV's (55in and 43in) at work and home and the experience is absolutely fantastic. In game mode the latency is reported to be 11ms and there's no difference visible to me compared to 60hz computer monitors.

Do you have the specific model numbers? I'm buying a new monitor soon, and considering using a 4K TV. Would be great to check out the ones you're using!

They're both ru7100. It may be called something else depending on where you are / may be replaced with newer models.

It basically works out as 4 seamless 1080p monitors, and I use i3 for a 3x2 window layout

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#873

Post by Tepix »

awtawtwat3aw wrote: post #726

lol @ monitors, new OLED tvs have hdmi 2.1, barely any bezel, and way better response/picture than any "monitor". burn-in isn't the issue it once as. will take years for people to realize this, though. feels good to live on the edge.

They are really large, however.

I'd like to see a 32 inch 6k OLED TV.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#874

Post by pixelrevision »

the_af wrote: post #76

The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…

I have a 2560x1440 monitor at home and 2x 4K monitors at work. I like my home setup better because the tools I spend most time with (vscode and Xcode) lock all their panels to one window making the real estate more important then the pixel density. I still have not found a way to get a 4K display not to display in “retina” 1080p without it getting too small, blurry or laggy.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#875

Post by delecti »

stu2b50 wrote: post #582
delecti wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly find MBP trackpads to be too big, which is admittedly a preference thing, but their keyboards are absolutely horrible, and I have difficulty understanding how anyone could think they were "great". There's not enough distinguishing keys from each other, so I can't ground myself to the home row. I can't think of many keyboards I've used throughout my life that I enjoy less than the MBP. And that's not even m…

Are you talking about the butterfly (2016-2019) keyboards or the new magic keyboard OP (2020) was talking about?

I was talking about the butterfly keyboards. I don't see anything in the comment I replied to that really lines up with what you're saying.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#876

Post by the_af »

jwr wrote: post #795
the_af wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So no, I don't think you can develop using "tiny laptops with poor 1366x768 displays". At least not all kinds of software, and not everyone can. This opinion seems bizarre to me. You start by offering personal (and valid) anecdote, then end up saying "I don't think you can develop [...]". But this flies in the face of evidence. Most people by far do not use your preferred monitor setup (iMac 5K) and in my country a…

Following your logic, I can't claim anything, because there is always someone, somewhere, who will come up with a contrary opinion. I do respect your opinion, but I still hold to mine. I also think this discussion won't lead anywhere, because we are glossing over the terms. Not every "developer" is the same, not every "software" is of the same complexity. I can fix CSS in a single 80x25 terminal, I can't do that when…

Note I do not dispute your opinion. You're entitled to it and you know what works for you.

Regrettably, following (my) logic does mean you cannot say "you [the generic you] cannot develop like this", because this is indeed easily disproven. People can and do (and sometimes even prefer to). That's the problem with generalizing from your personal opinion ("I don't like this") to the general ("people cannot like this").

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#877

Post by tvanantwerp »

ogre_codes wrote: post #574
thomaslord wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience: 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display) 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plu…

> 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode You lost me right here on line 1. If there are apps on MacOS that can't handle high dpi mode, I haven't run into them as a developer (or doing photo editing, video editing, plus whatever other hobbies I do). Also, I don't have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p d…

Agree that I've never had DPI scaling issues with macOS. But Windows? All the damn time! They still haven't got that figured out.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#878

Post by the_af »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #830
the_af wrote: post #76

The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…

Yes you can code well on tiny laptops with poor 1366x768 displays - but double or triple set ups are more efficient. Its more about maximising productivity in my opinion.

Oh, no argument from me. I said I knew plenty of people I admire, and who are way better than me profesionally speaking, who can code with 1366x768 displays and dismiss the urgency of getting a better screen. In this sense I meant that it's not time to upgrade your monitor: it's simply not that urgent to own the highest DPI screen you can buy.

Me? I can certainly code with a poor quality 1366x768 display (doing it right now with this Dell Inspiron!) but I hate it. I'm not a 4K snob, but I do like better screens!

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#879

Post by erinaceousjones »

the_af wrote: post #76

The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…

Yup, this kind of stuff is very much based on preference. I think some people have tighter comfort deadbands and others are tolerant of anything. These can be the same person, on different days / differing amounts of sleep / different tasks / different lunches / different music.

i.e. I have a three monitor setup, two 1080 screens and a central 1440p screen. Mechanical cherry blue keyboard and a nice gaming mouse. Big desk. One of those anti-RSI boob mousemats. Nice headphones. Beefy computer. Ergonomic office chair. Everything at the right height. Quiet room. Next to an open window, but which is in shade.

Some days I will happily chug away writing reams of code.

Other days I will get nothing done and every minor annoyance will bring me out of focus; background sounds, glitches in my desktop environment, almost inconceivable hitches in computer performance, my chair feels wrong, the contrast of all text is too high, it's too dark in here, it's too bright, this is all bullshit, I'm so done with computers...

And on other days I'll get even more done, hunched like a Goblin in my living room armchair with my legs tucked beneath me, working through to the early morning, on my tiny 13 inch dell laptop, vaguely aware that I have searing pain* through one wrist, having not eaten for 12 hours, but completely and utterly content and in flow writing code or a paper.

Humans are crazy fickle.

There's no Platonic Ideals when it comes to Crushing It(tm) as a software developer.

I think learning the art of mindfulness and meditation does more to help you focus than expensive equipment fads and micro-optimizing your environment.

* Before anyone mentions, yeah I'm aware RSI is Not Good. I've got a bunch of various remedies for it. Ironically I've found that bouldering helps with this it the most. Just not able to do that during lockdown :(

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